Gallery-goers Agree! Treasure Frey's Show a Gem!

The weather was crisp as if to announce the momentous fall season that began in galleries all over Williamsburg last week. Here at Like The Spice we couldn’t wait to open the doors to L.A.-based artist Treasure Frey’s first NY solo exhibition, Shards. The streets were buzzing with gallery-goers anxious to check out the latest like Ran Ortner’s paintings at Causey Contemporary, Stephen Mallon’s photographs at Front Room, and Patrick Martinez’s video installation at Parker’s Box. Like the Spice was hopping with people anxious to see Shards. Guests schmoozed, drank wine, and examined Frey’s meticulously executed, colorful and dynamic collages. The artists, friends, and art-appreciators in attendance admired the work and got a chance to meet the artist herself.

Shards consists of new multi-media works. Frey uses gouache, tape, and acrylic paint to create layers that suggest three-dimensional forms. Her work vacillates between the geometric and the organic, the abstract and the figurative. It is delicate with a Modernist edge. Frey uses clusters and crystalline constructions to evoke different natural forms that in some works seem stable and in others threaten to dissolve or explode into chaos.

Whether people came to Like the Spice explicitly to see Shards or were simply drawn in from their general exploration of all the art events happening in the neighborhood, everyone had a good word to say about the work. The adorable Frey was beaming throughout the night and for good reason: people couldn’t stop complimenting the show! Shards is up at Like the Spice until October 10th. Be sure to RSVP on our website for the next instance of our Monthly Dinner Series on September 24th featuring Treasure Frey!

A Sudden Rush...

Yes it was a bit damp, and yes, some of us were in flip flops as if we believed being ill equipped would fend off the rain, but in spite of the weather the unveiling of Rachel Beach's first outdoor sculpture, Gold Rush, at the opening of the Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition was a grand success. There were quite a lot of people there exploring the beautiful grounds of the Socrates Sculpture Park and taking in the local flora while admiring all of the pieces in the show. It's clear from one lap around the amount of labor, time, and dedication that all of the fellows put into this occasion and Like the Spice would like to offer a rousing applause. It is definitely something to see, rain or no. Rachel's piece is just spectacular, tall and delicate at some angles, and then massive and towering from others. At times the illusion changes and the piece goes from being a compilation of many beams to being a structure consisting of just one or two vertical pieces. Yes, ladies and gents, it transforms! And now, for all of you patiently awaiting a peek at Rachel's newest piece here it is....Whooshhhhh!!

I know, I know, it's cloudy and dark and maybe not entirely in focus but doesn't it remind you of one of those paparazzi shots? It does! Well, that is because Gold Rush is the newest celebrity in town. With its breathtaking height and the way it literally changes shape and form and becomes something totally different as you walk around it and interact with it makes it our new favorite attraction. Want an autograph? Great, go to the Socrates Sculpture Park which is only a hop, skip, and jump away (or, if you are me it's the N Train to the Broadway stop in Queens). Hope to see you there soon!

Classical Greek Philosopher, or Kick Ass Sculpture Park?

Yup, we're going to have to go with "Kick Ass Sculpture Park". That's right ladies and gents, Socrates Sculpture Park is one of the coolest places in NYC and will now be even cooler because Rachel Beach has just completed her first outdoor sculpture and it will be unveiled in all of its glory at the Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition opening on Sunday, September 12th. This is such a wonderful opportunity to see one of our own in the context of this GORGEOUS fall weather. Just think about it, the chance to be outside and take in an educational and aesthetically stimulating day of sculpture and the outdoors without sweating buckets? I know, it sounds amazing to me.


Now, you may or may not be familiar with Rachel Beach's sculpture (shame on you if you are not), but they are just spectacular; situated firmly in the border between sculpture and painting, illusion and reality, masculine and feminine, representation, abstraction and decoration, her work is crafted around cultural and biological limits. By playing painted illusion against sculptural reality each sculpture/painting creates a crisis of perception, an irresolvable tension between what you see and what is possible. Now think about this on a large scale, I mean huge. I am talking about something that incorporates all of the above elements but with a type of weight and illusion never seen before in her work. Exciting, right? So go and check it out this Sunday, September 12th from 2-6 rain or shine!!

Want to learn more about the park? Socrates Sculpture Park is the only site in the New York Metropolitan area specifically dedicated to providing artists with opportunities to create and exhibit large-scale work in a unique environment that encourages strong interaction between artists, artworks and the public. The Park's existence is based on the belief that reclamation, revitalization and creative expression are essential to the survival, humanity and improvement of our urban environment.

"PREGNANCY PACT," and other stories by Chino Amobi...

"PREGNANCY PACT" is the large brand new name of Chino Amobi's first solo show here at Like the Spice and we are just so excited that we could not wait to tell you about it! The show opens on October 8th from 6:30-10pm and will be open until November 7th. Chino invites us to follow his melody as it resonates through color and shape. His multimedia work puts figure traditions beneath the gloss of our digital age, with the mix of layers and tones becoming what he defines as "hot media", and, ultimately, carrying the viewer along behind his piping tune. We have often been checking in with him as he works away in Virginia and what we have seem and heard thus far leaves us wanting for more. Oh, and don't forget our monthly artist dinners! For those of you who were able to join us for Figure Ates, the dinner for Marked, you know that Chino is one of the most captivating speakers we have had thus far. Not only is he eloquent, but his voice is as smooth as the glossy coating on some his pieces. I'm serious about this folks, not one to be missed...

We Found Treasure and we're even willing to share!!!

Like the Spice is pleased to present Shards, an exhibition fresh from the hands of Los Angeles based artist Treasure Frey. In this, her first solo show at Like the Spice, Treasure explores the boundaries of her paper works, offering assemblies that appear to have burst from their constraints, and then been carefully pieced back together. These little explosions form eloquent and ordered tangrams of color that simultaneously invoke destruction and creation.

Ms. Frey’s most recent body of work focuses on small slices of color, a visible translation of a specific energy. Influenced by particles, waves, atoms, and organisms, Treasure's conservation of matter forces all of these elements to act in concert, revealing formal visual decisions to form their own microcosms, macrocosms. In these obssessionalist collages Treasure considers, cuts, lays her gouache and acrylic, tapes, and then begins again; her process is a cycle in which the critical mass occurs again. Each singular unit of her energy and color act together to form a machine which, when whole, commands a greater and more powerful place than before.

The responses to her work at the Affordable Arts Fair and ArtHamptons are testaments to the kind of energy and power in her work. We are really excited to host her first solo show at Like the Spice opening on September 10th and running until October 3rd. Please join us at the reception on September 10th from 6:30PM to 10PM for what promises to be an evening of art, wine, and whimsy. And if you can't get enough Treasure and all the riches of her work, get the unique chance to hear her speak and talk with her about her processes at the artist's dinner on September 24th at 8PM. RSVP is required and we hope to see you there!

October will prove to be just as an exciting a month with artist Chino Amobi's first solo exhibition "PREGNANCY PACT" and artist's dinner. While the summer is almost over, there is an abundance of great things to look forward to upcoming in the fall at Like the Spice.

Drifting Away: Summer Group Exhibition at Like the Spice

Drifting Away: Summer Group Exhibition at Like the Spice
Exhibition Dates August 13th- September 5th, 2010 Opening Reception:
Friday, August 13th, 6:30-10pm

Artist’s Dinner Friday August 20th, 2010: 8pm – 10pm RSVP Required
Note: Like the Spice will be closed August 23rd- September 2nd


We’ve walked through The Beaded Curtain, been witness to a Civil Union, weathered through a Climate Untamed, posed for a long Exposure, explored The World We Live In, The Worlds We Create, sought shelter in the Homeless Boys Social Club, and ended up with our memory Marked by individual histories and forms. It has really been quite a year at Like the Spice.

Our gallery's attended fairs both old and new, been represented in three different countries, gotten more press than ever before, and added several amazing new artists to our already impeccable roster. All things considered, we've had an incredible season. As summer begins the slow and poetic retreat into fall, we've decided that this is a perfect time to reflect on all our artists have done this year. We're not resting on our laurels, but we are catching our breath!

Drifting Away, our fourth annual Summer Sampler here at Like the Spice, will include many familiar Like the Spice artists, but will also serve as a preview of our soon-to-be-arriving fall/spring season. Mixed in among the old favorites, you'll find some emerging artists new to our gallery, artists we think you should watch out for. There will be work of all mediums, shapes, and sizes; a celebration of greatest hits co- existing with what are destined to be part of the billboard’s top ten.

Drifting Away features work by Chino Amobi, Rachel Beach, Jason Bryant, Allison Edge, Treasure Frey, Dean Goelz, Greg Haberny, Misako Inaoka, Patrick Jacobs, Eric LoPresti , Jenny Morgan, Bennett Morris, Reuben Negron, Matthew Northridge, Ross Racine, Ryan Shultz, Nicki Stager, and Jessica Stoller.

Summer Lovin' Having a Blast....At Like the Spice

We’ve been so busy here at Like the Spice that we’ve barely had a moment to write in depth about all the great things that have been going on in the past month. While it’s the summer here in Brooklyn, and the hot weather has a tendency to make those lazy afternoons even lazier, we haven’t slowed down a bit!

This past month some of our artists’ hard work has generated quite a bit of buzz. We’d like to congratulate Reach Beach on her feature interview with Bomb Magazine which can be found at Bomblog. Discussion revolving around the transitions in her work and fundamental content from which she derives her inspiration provides great insight into the nature of her thinking and process of making. Of her work Rachel states that is has "to do with the structure of monuments and ideas. I was way more interested in the edge of an object, how objects work in the world, how perception works, how we see, and how our brain works versus how something physically is, and the line between those two things. " Bomblog writer Lynn Maliszewski refers to Rachel's work with the following metaphor. "Like a stockbroker gender-bending on the weekends, Beach’s objects straddle a line between two existences, clouding the viewer’s vision of truth." The developments in her work are truly promising as she will embark on several upcoming new projects. We are especially excited about the installation of her outdoor sculpture in Socrates Sculpture Park as this kind of context for one of her pieces is sure to open a new and exciting kind of dialogue.





We are also excited to congratulate another LTS artist, Eric Lopresti, who is featured in Assembly Journal. We were most intrigued to read about the sources for his imagery which are undeniably linked to the location of his childhood home, the conditions created and residue left by our country during World War II, and what he refers to as “the aftermath of traumatic conflict and the terrifying beauty of the American sublime."




We are truly engaged by any opportunity that allows our readers and collectors to know more about our artists, their work, and sources of creativity.

In keeping with this sentiment, this past Saturday we held an artists’ studio tour in which we visited the studios of Jason Bryant, Allison Edge, Eric Lopresti, Jessica Stoller, and Rachel Beach. This event was a fantastic opportunity for collectors to see how some of our LTS artists functioned in their working spaces (a place quite sacred to an artist) while providing the opportunity for one on one discussion. The day was pretty hot, but the work in our artists’ studio’s were even hotter, and everyone had a fantastic time, sipping on wine, munching on refreshing thai food, journeying to each studio for in depth discussion while viewing works in progress and finished pieces all the like. For a tour, it was an especially personal, informative, and special experience.

While all that has passed, there are still plenty of exciting events to look forward to this summer at Like The Spice. "Marked: A Show of Figure" will only be open for two more weeks so come by and check it out before its too late! Friday, August 13th we will open "Summer Sampler Group Show", displaying some favorites along with a bunch of new and exciting works from LTS artists.

And while we are closed for only one week on August 23rd-September 1st, September 10th is the opening of Treasure Frey's Solo Show. This will be Treasure's first solo show at Like the Spice and we are pleased to install her pieces which satisfy the eye by cleverly marrying the whimsy of bright color, bold form, and geometric constructions.


This next month will prove to be a satisfying and exciting close to Summer and a great lead into another fine season of fantastic work at Like the Spice in the Fall.